In the production of processing meat cuts, such as pork butts, existing specifications require that sufficient fat be removed from the butt to expose six to eight square inches of lean meat, while leaving 1/8th to 1/4th of an inch fat cover on the remaining curved surface of the meat cut.
Existing machines and methods for achieving the above specification involve safety hazards and inaccurate cutting which results in waste of meat product. Further, more than one trimming operation is normally required to achieve the needed specification. Existing processes are labor intensive.
Until now, the process of removing an optimal amount of fat from meat cuts such as pork butts has required a person who makes repeated cuts until the desired amount of lean meat is exposed. Often this results in waste, as it is impossible to tell without cutting into it at what depth the lean starts and the fat stops.
Previous attempts at automating this process have met with failure because of the variation in fat cover on the meat cuts. The fat cover on meat cuts typically has a layer of lean running through it, which starts about halfway between the neck and the back which is called the false lean. The fat cover is normally thinnest at the neck edge and fattest at the back edge. It is customary when preparing such meat for sale to remove a wedge-shaped piece of fat in order to expose the "false lean". Typically in the industry, enough fat should be removed to expose at least six square inches of lean meat.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide an apparatus for removing a portion of fat from meat cuts which is safe, accurate, and efficient both from a standpoint of time and labor involved.
It is a further object of the invention to provide for the photometric determination of the layers of fat and lean within individual pieces of meat for the purpose of guiding the automated removal of optimal amounts of unwanted material by means of an optical device located within a specially constructed probe.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.